Princeton nonprofits hoping to save Valley Road School may get funding from Boston group

The old Valley Road School building in Princeton.Andrew Miller / For The Times

PRINCETON — A local nonprofit that wants to turn the aging Valley Road School building on Witherspoon Street into a community center says it has interest from an out-of-state investor that the group hopes will solve the questions of how it would finance the project.

The Sustainable Energy Funding Program, a Boston-based nonprofit financing organization, has contacted the citizens groups hoping to save and redevelop the aging school building, members of the nonprofit Valley Road School Community Center Inc., and of the Valley Road Adaptive Reuse Committee, told council on Monday night.

Former Princeton township mayor Dick Woodbridge, a member of both groups, said the Sustainable Energy Funding Program specializes in rehabilitating public buildings for public/private partnerships in projects costing more than $2.5 million. The Valley Road School groups were contacted earlier this month by the group’s executive director, Larry Sprague, earlier this month about the project.

“This is a win-win-win proposition,” Woodbridge said.

Woodbridge said the groups met with a representative of the Sustainable Energy Funding Program last week, and he was receptive and now wants to meet with Mayor Liz Lempert and school board president Tim Quinn.

Quinn said Monday he first heard of the potential investor Saturday evening, but said he would not meet with them until he had the full and expressed consent of the board. Quinn also questioned why the Valley Road School group had sent an e-mail to him and one other member of the board of education, but not to the mayor and all of the council.

“Much of like what we’ve heard from VRS-ARC, it sounds very aspirational, but it’s very short on details,” he said.

The school board rejected the group’s proposal earlier this year partly because it “failed to credibly demonstrate that it could secure funding for its proposal, despite having many years to do so. The citizens groups have said they want to obtain a 100-year lease at $1 a year for the land and that for $3.9 million they could create a space that could include two small theaters for dramatic arts, a cafe and affordable offices for local nonprofits.

The Valley Road School group, which was rebuffed by the town in its attempt to get a referendum this November asking council to negotiate with the school board to save the property, says it may revisit that for next year. It is also looking at the issue of the school district’s ownership of the property. The town sold the property to the school district for $1 years ago, and the Valley Road School group is questioning whether the district can now turn around and seek market value for that property.

Lempert reiterated the town’s position Monday, saying that it had no real say in what happened to school board property. The town, though, has its own plan for the property and is exploring the possibility of using the land to expand the firehouse that sits next door to the old school building. Town officials on the task force have said a specific plan has not yet been developed, but that town is only interested in the land — not the building.

Council also heard Monday night that councilwoman Heather Howard could not take part in upcoming discussions about Princeton University’s voluntary financial contribution to the municipality.

The town’s attorney told council that Howard had a conflict of interest because of her employment at the university. Howard is a lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson school. She frequently recused herself when serving in the former borough during hearings about the Arts and Transit project.

The opinion came days after Lempert was given the okay to take part in talks. Her participation was called into question because of her husband’s position as a fully tenured faculty member at the university.

The town’s attorney said in his written opinion that the mayor could take no actions that would “provide for a benefit, salary or otherwise, to her husband and/or his department.”